Selecting curve after importing svg using bpy
You can store the names of the objects before and after importing and find the difference to make sure you have the latest one:

import bpy
C = bpy.context

# Names of all objects before importing the SVG
names_pre_import = set([ o.name for o in C.scene.objects ])

# Import SVG as curve
fp = '/mylocalpath/svgcurve.svg'
bpy.ops.import_curve.svg(filepath = fp)

# Names of all objects after importing the SVG
names_post_import = set([ o.name for o in C.scene.objects ])

# Perform set difference to find the new name and store it
new_object_name = names_post_import.difference( names_pre_import ).pop()

# Reference new object
o = C.scene.objects[ new_object_name ]

# Set as selected and active in Blender 2.7x
o.select = True
C.scene.objects.active = o

# Set as selected and active in Blender 2.8
# o.select_set(True)
# C.view_layer.objects.active = o